By Daphne Chen

Last semester, I noticed a trend about myself. Something alarming. Unprecedented. Unacceptable.

And yet, I never cared.

After all, what kind of senior cares if his or her grades take a downward slide?

And keep sliding?

And keep sliding?

I realized that I had just failed two quizzes in AP Macroeconomics and didn’t care enough to ask if I could retake them. I realized that I didn’t care that I hadn’t checked Portal in two six weeks. I realized that I didn’t care where my grades fell at all for the semester – as long as they were above an 85.

But these weren’t the most disturbing of my realizations as I pondered my steadily declining grades over the last six weeks. And last weekend, over a five-hour bus ride home from Austin for a Model United Nations competition, I had even more time to think about it.

What scares me is the dawning realization that, after having been accepted by my dream college, I had lost all motivation for the things that once used to be so important to me, that used to give me pride. An identity. And were my grades part of that identity?

Partly, yes. Some will think that I was too defined by my academics, that I had “no life”, but what I miss isn’t the grades – I miss the constant striving for a goal I made that was basically 16 years in the making, that I sacrificed for, that I cried over when I failed, and ultimately when I succeeded.

Something that drove me forward.

I’m not saying that I want to repeat the first three years of high school again, but I can’t help but to mourn the loss of something that was so important to me. Here, finally, is what I dreamed about for so long while suffering through the indignities of freshman year, the tribulations of sophomore year, the torture of junior year.

And now what do I have my senior year? Freedom. Freedom to choose what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, to the ends that I want to accomplish.

Or is that only what people say about the mythological “second semester senior year”?

I have my freedom, I suppose, to slack off on my schoolwork and to stay out late while doing just that, but I also lost something as well.

It’s funny to think that when you reach your goal, you also lose it.

And I can’t help but to feel a bit lost these days, like I’m wandering in and out of each day, looking for something to give me a purpose again.

Of course, there are the usual goals that people set for themselves as they go into college: deciding a major. Starting a great career. Finding a potential spouse.

But such aspirations seem so much more distant, so much more untouchable, so much more vague and uncharted. Working towards college acceptance throughout high school was easy because so many people had walked the same path before, like a map. But for these larger life goals, there isn’t a planned route – there isn’t that map I can follow, step by step, grade by grade.

Maybe I feel lost simply because I am.